{"id":"C1941A00003","name":"Pay-roll Tax Act 1941","slug":"pay-roll-tax-act-1941","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"commonwealth","status":"repealed","isInForce":false,"actNumber":"3 of 1941","makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":4023,"registerId":"commonwealth-C1941A00003-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-03-30","status":"Repealed","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Pay-roll Tax Act 1941","content":"---\nmeta-content-style-type: text/css\nmeta-content-type: application/xhtml+xml; charset=utf-8\nmeta-generator: Aspose.Words for .NET 20.2\n---\n\n?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\" standalone=\"no\"?>\n\nPAY-ROLL TAX.\n\n \n\nNo. 3 of 1941.\n\nAn Act to impose a Tax upon the Payment of Wages.\n\n[Assented to 4th April, 1941.]\n\n[Date of commencement, 2nd May, 1941.]\n\nBE it enacted by the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, as follows:—\n\nShort title.\n\n1. This Act may be cited as the Pay-roll Tax Act 1941.\n\nIncorporation.\n\n2. The Pay-roll Tax Assessment Act 1941 shall be incorporated and read as one with this Act.\n\nImposition of pay-roll tax.\n\n3. A tax at the rate of Two pounds ten shillings per centum is imposed on all wages paid or payable by any employer in respect of any period of time occurring after the thirtieth day of June, One thousand nine hundred and forty-one.\n\nPayment of pay-roll tax.\n\n4. The tax imposed by this Act shall be paid by the employer who pays or is liable to pay the wages.\n","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"kimi_summary":{"_metrics":{"model":"kimi-k2.5","source":"moonshot-batch","completionTokens":1431},"content_quality":"ok","complexity_score":1,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"This is the original 1941 enactment establishing the payroll tax system; it represents the baseline scope against which subsequent amendments would be measured."},"complexity_factors":["Only 4 sections in total","No defined terms within this Act (delegated entirely to the Assessment Act)","Single, flat tax rate with no exemptions, thresholds, or conditional logic","Minimal cross-referencing (only one reference to the Assessment Act)","No procedural or administrative machinery contained in this Act"],"plain_english_summary":"This law creates a **payroll tax** — a tax on wages paid to workers.\n\n**What it does:**\n- Charges employers a tax of **2.5%** (written as \"two pounds ten shillings per centum\" in the historical currency of 1941) on all wages they pay or owe to employees\n- Applies only to wages paid for work done after 30 June 1941\n- Makes the employer legally responsible for paying this tax to the government\n\n**How it operates:**\nThis Act works as a pair with the *Pay-roll Tax Assessment Act 1941*. This Act creates the actual tax obligation and sets the rate, while the Assessment Act contains the detailed rules about how to calculate wages, file returns, and administer the tax.\n\n**Who it affects:**\nAny employer (a person or business that pays workers) with wage obligations after mid-1941."},"flash_summary":{"complexity_score":2,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"The Act, as written, imposes a payroll tax on wages at a statutory rate and makes the employer legally liable (sections 3–4), while delegating assessment and collection mechanics to the Pay-roll Tax Assessment Act 1941 (section 2). There is no language in this text indicating any change from that original scope: it neither adds exemptions nor alters the base or payer beyond those provisions."},"complexity_factors":["Very short statute with only four operative sections","Fixed tax rate expressed in historical currency notation (\"Two pounds ten shillings per centum\") rather than modern percentage form","Administrative and definitional detail is delegated to the incorporated Pay-roll Tax Assessment Act 1941 (section 2), creating dependency on a second instrument for practical complexity","Temporal application point is explicit (periods after 30 June 1941), requiring attention to payroll period timing","Absence of in-text definitions (e.g. of \"wages\") increases reliance on the Assessment Act for interpretation and compliance rules"],"plain_english_summary":"What this law changes mechanically\n\n- The Act imposes a tax on wages paid by employers. The tax base is \"wages\" and the tax rate is set in the Act as \"Two pounds ten shillings per centum\" (section 3). The tax applies to wages paid or payable for any period of time occurring after 30 June 1941 (section 3). The employer is legally liable to pay the tax (section 4).\n\n- The Act incorporates the separate Pay-roll Tax Assessment Act 1941 and requires that the Assessment Act be read as one with this Act (section 2). That means assessment, collection, compliance rules, and enforcement procedures are handled by the Assessment Act rather than in this short instrument.\n\nStated purpose and the mechanical effects\n\n- The Act’s stated purpose (its short title and preamble) is to impose a tax upon the payment of wages. Mechanically, it (a) creates a legal obligation on employers to pay a specified tax rate on wages (s3–s4), and (b) delegates assessment and administrative detail to the incorporated Pay-roll Tax Assessment Act 1941 (s2).\n\nWho pays, who decides, and what must change in behaviour\n\n- Who pays: Employers bear the statutory liability to pay the tax (section 4).\n- Who decides/administrates: The Assessment Act, incorporated by section 2, will determine the practical rules for assessing, reporting and collecting the tax (the current Act itself contains only the tax rate, base and liability). This gives the revenue authority procedural discretion under the Assessment Act.\n- Behaviour changes likely to follow (mechanisms, not predictions): Employers must calculate the tax on wages for periods after 30 June 1941 and remit it under the procedures set out in the Assessment Act (s3–s4; s2). Employers may change payroll, hiring, wage-setting, accounting or billing practices in response to a new cost imposed by the tax; any detailed compliance activity (returns, record-keeping, timing of payments) will be determined by the Assessment Act (s2).\n\nCosts, incentives, trade-offs and implementation points (source-grounded)\n\n- Direct cost-bearer: The statutory payer is the employer (s4). That is the explicit legal incidence; economic incidence (who ultimately bears the cost) can shift in practice through wages, prices or employment decisions — the Act sets the legal mechanism (s3–s4) but does not prescribe how costs must be borne in contracts.\n\n- Revenue mechanism and rate: The tax is a fixed statutory rate stated in old currency terms (\"Two pounds ten shillings per centum\") applied to wages (s3). The Act does not convert or restate that rate in percentage terms within its text.\n\n- Administrative delegation and compliance burden: The Act deliberately keeps administrative details out of the primary text and incorporates the Pay-roll Tax Assessment Act 1941 (s2). That means obligations such as how and when to lodge returns, record-keeping standards, penalties, and remedies are set in the Assessment Act rather than here; employers must follow both Acts.\n\n- Discretion and implementation risk: Because the Assessment Act is incorporated, the practical scope of enforcement, timing, exemptions, and collection methods depend on that secondary instrument (s2). The primary Act is short and leaves implementation discretion to the assessment regime.\n\n- Trade-offs and opportunity costs: Applying a statutory tax to wages reduces the net resources available to employers for alternative uses (wages, hiring, investment). The Act does not itself create exemptions, thresholds, or reliefs; any such details must appear in the Assessment Act (s3; s2).\n\n- Concrete limits on scope in this text: The Act specifies only (1) the tax base (wages), (2) the rate (as stated), (3) the legal payer (employer) and (4) the effective period threshold (periods after 30 June 1941) (s3–s4). It does not address collection mechanics, definitions of \"wages,\" or exemptions — those are for the incorporated Assessment Act (s2).\n\nKey citations\n\n- Incorporation of assessment rules: section 2.\n- Tax imposed; base, rate and timing: section 3.\n- Legal liability to pay the tax: section 4."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/pay-roll-tax-act-1941","history":"/api/acts/pay-roll-tax-act-1941/history","analysis":"/api/acts/pay-roll-tax-act-1941/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/pay-roll-tax-act-1941/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/pay-roll-tax-act-1941/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/pay-roll-tax-act-1941/documents"}}